"SPOKANE, Wash. — Workers on a former nuclear weapons production site have started the first large-scale treatment of radioactive and chemical wastes from large underground storage tanks, a key milestone in cleaning up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday.

Hanford for decades made plutonium for the nation’s nuclear arsenal and is the most radioactively contaminated site in the nation’s nuclear weapons complex. It was created by the Manhattan Project and made the plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of the World War II.

William White, Energy Department senior advisor for environmental management, called the new $130 million cesium removal system a major milestone."

Nicholas K. Geranios reports for the Associated Press February 3, 2022. [2]